Re: COGEMA Says No to LNT

[AndrewsJP@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 5/10/02 2:12:34 PM Pacific Daylight Time, lavelyp@UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU writes:



> In the case of iodine-129, for instance, the implied 
>
> contamination of drinking water at 3 millirem whole body equivalent 
>
> exposure is 25 times the allowable safe drinking water limit. 


Yes, but the allowable safe drinking water limit for I-129 is absurdly low when you consider the physical amount of I-129 that would be necessary to contaminate water to that level and the limited amount of that nuclide mass available in the form of contamination that could contribute to that dose.


I assume that 3 millirem value is an annual dose.


On the other hand, if we were to include SNF reprocessing, that might be another story.


Even so, because of the very long half life, and therefore, the low specific activity AND the low energy of I-129, it would take a large amount (mass) to give a significant dose.


John Andrews

Knoxville, Tennessee